"These roads don't move, you're the one that moves."I wrote a novel once, back when I was young and still believed in everything. It was the true story of a cross-country journey I took in a Volkswagen bus with my old buddy Ray. The stated purpose of the journey was to track down another old buddy who'd gone off the radar -- or so we believed. The true purpose of the journey came to reveal itself in other ways, such as the writing of the novel.
The true purpose of the journey may continue to reveal itself, as I continue to retrace the seemingly disconnected routes of my past.
One thing I do know -- there was another Presence riding along with us in that old VW. An unseen Guide, who whispered strange incantations during lonely stretches of endless moonlit highway, and howled with crazy Zen laughter in the mist-laden dawn. His name was Jack Kerouac.
Like everybody else, I first learned about Kerouac from his novel, On The Road. Reading On The Road was like a rite of passage, an initiation into the counterculture, the Boy Scout Manual for Bohemians. On The Road was the beginning of a journey that wound its way through the mythological landscape of the American soul, with a Charlie Parker soundtrack playing on the dashboard radio and the ghosts of forgotten poets towering above the distant horizon. It was a call to action, a prayer for deliverance. It made a young man want to move.
So, one crisp spring morning, I set out from Middletown, Connecticut, with my thumb stuck out over Route 9, headed south. I hitched my way down to North Carolina where I met up with Ray, on his way east from Illinois. We had little money and nothing to eat. We slept on the cold ground and wandered under the hot sun. We visited some girls we knew from high school, hoping they would fall in love with us.
But they didn't.
We hitched our way west to Nashville and stayed with another old buddy named Gary. Got drunk and slept it off. Then hitched north, back home to Louisville. All along the way, we met crazy characters and saw wondrous visions. We talked about Life and Love and Music and Truth. We lived in the moment. And we kept moving.
We were on the road.
About a year later, it was time to move again. Winter this time, and I had a vehicle. A blue and white Volkswagen bus with the middle seat taken out. Just a simple caravan, a Conestoga wagon for crossing the Great Plains. We had different reasons for making the trip -- to go to California, to find a lost friend, to continue on our journey. But once we got going, we knew why we were there. The wheels rolling under us, the road spooling out endlessly ahead. The past disappearing in the rear-view. The future just beyond the windshield.
I kept a journal of our voyage -- it seemed like things were unfolding in important and historic ways that had to be recorded. Life had become a novel. Fiction was reality. We were characters, living chapter to chapter. We didn't know what was coming until it happened. Each day was written fresh and then the page was turned.
We got a small apartment in Oakland near Lake Merritt. We got jobs. We worked and slept, ate and drank. Went to movies and concerts. We found our errant friend and failed to lure him home. We argued, commiserated, dreamed and planned. Pages turned. Chapters were written.
A couple of years later, when I actually began the task of transforming my road-journal into a full fledged road-novel, I read Ann Charters' biography of Kerouac, and learned a bit about his unconventional writing methods -- some of which I adopted. As I wrote, carving out chapters from the various scattered episodes and stringing them together in a structure that felt logical, I began to see some sense in what had happened. Or perhaps I imposed some sense onto what had happened. Either way, I was creating order from chaos and finding meaning in the void. I was being a writer.
My one unbending principle was that everything I wrote had to be absolutely true. I believed that telling the truth would give my story a noble authority that would elevate it beyond the reach of my meager talents. I have since discovered that what is true is not always worth telling -- and what's worth telling is not always true. But back then, in the spirit of Kerouac, I wrote exactly what happened, exactly the way it happened.
Of course, the names were changed to protect the (not so) innocent.
After that fabled journey, there were many others. Three more times across the country -- once using the same auto-driveaway service that Kerouac used. Several hitchhiking adventures, including a wild ride through Pennsylvania in a van full of hippies. And one late-night, high-speed run through Alabama that ended up with me leaning against the hood of an Oldsmobile while a State Trooper pointed a shotgun at my head. I even went on the road in Europe, driving from Paris through the Swiss Alps into Italy and then by ferry to Corsica and back into France. That trip felt a little more like Hemingway than Kerouac.
But all of that, as they say, was long ago. I stopped driving, for the most part, when I moved to New York City. My old Plymouth Valiant, which I had operated for years without the benefit of license or registration, sat in my sister's driveway, having become a combination mouse condo and canoe rack. I took the train or the bus instead of driving. Most of my wanderings consisted of long walks on the streets of Manhattan and Brooklyn.
Here in LA, one spends quite a bit of time behind the wheel, and I often found it a relief to park the car on Friday night and not see it again until Monday morning. But I did enjoy a very memorable drive down the coast one summer with my nephew. We started in San Francisco, where we visited the City Lights Bookstore and Jack Kerouac Alley, then headed south along the Pacific Coast Highway. We stopped for the night in Big Sur, where Kerouac lived one summer in a tiny cabin beneath the Bixby Canyon Bridge.
I didn't really know much about Kerouac's life in Bixby Canyon. I'd never read his book, Big Sur, about his attempt to escape the trappings of fame and alcoholism and find some kind of spiritual connection in the rustic tranquility of the California coast. I just knew that he'd lived there and that it was one of the most beautiful places on earth.
A few weeks ago, though, for my birthday, my Mom sent me a documentary called One Fast Move Or I'm Gone, which tells the story of Kerouac's Big Sur retreat. She heard about it on NPR, which my Dad listens to 24 hours a day, and thought I might like it. She was right -- I loved it.
Accompanying the DVD, there is a CD of songs by Ben Gibbard and Jay Farrar using Kerouac's words as lyrics. I've been listening to that CD non-stop since my birthday, and one song in particular has gotten stuck in my head. I hear it when I'm swimming. I find myself singing it when I'm out for a walk. The chorus goes: "These roads don't move, you're the one that moves."
At first I didn't know what that meant. It was just a catchy little phrase I kept repeating to myself. But as I listened more closely to the rest of the song, it started to make more sense. It was like Kerouac, still hovering over my shoulder on that moonlit highway, had one more mysterious message to impart. "These roads don't move..." All this restless wandering isn't taking you anywhere. "You're the one that moves." The transformation happens within.
After all these years, I guess I'm still on the road. I'm just not going anywhere.
There was a movie theater in Louisville called the Vogue, that used to show different movies every night for just a couple of bucks. The Vogue showed classic movies, foreign movies, art-house movies, independent movies. They ran The Rocky Horror Picture Show every week for 24 consecutive years. It was the last of the old single-screen theaters. Now it is gone. I saw some great movies there back in the 70's: A Clockwork Orange, Walkabout, Easy Rider, Frenzy, Last Tango In Paris, The Wicker Man, Five Easy Pieces, Woodstock, M*A*S*H, Dirty Harry, Murder On The Orient Express, Dr. Zhivago. Many more I can't remember. But of all the amazing movies I saw at the Vogue, I think the one that made the biggest impression on me was Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Prior to seeing the movie, most of what I knew about Monty Python came from their records. I used to hang around with a posse of nerds in high school and one of them, a guy from Texas of all places, had a collection of Monty Python records. As it turns out, the PBS television station in Dallas was the first station to broadcast episodes of Monty Python's Flying Circus -- so he had the jump on us in that department. I don't remember ever seeing the show in Louisville. Though I do recall seeing Eric Idle on Saturday Night Live a couple of times. And I have a vague memory of seeing the Nudge Nudge sketch on the Tonight Show.
Nevertheless, when my nerd buddies and I decided to do a comedy remake of A Man For All Seasons for our tenth grade English class (cleverly titled "A Man For All Seasonings") the Python influence was in full force.
In one pivotal scene from our movie, when Sir Thomas Moron is giving his famous "It's not that I believe it, but that I believe it..." line, the Duke of Norfuk breaks character and says "What the hell does that mean?" Moron replies "I don't know, it's in the script." He pulls a copy of the script out and points to the page in question. Norfuk grabs the script and looks at it in disbelief, saying, "it doesn't make any sense!" He then walks off camera, throwing the script down in disgust. Moron looks at the camera and pulls out a box of crackers, saying "and now for some nice Ritz Crackers!" He shoves an handful into his mouth and the scene ends.
We shot much of our movie "on location" i.e., in the woods near a babbling brook, in back of a liquor store, in the middle of a corporate office park. And since my 8mm camera had no sound, we carried a portable GE tape recorder around with us everywhere and recorded all of the dialogue on the spot. This turned out to be a big problem, since there was a lot of fumbling with the tape recorder, not to mention traffic noise, airplanes and the aforementioned babbling brook. So we had to re-record all of the dialogue in real time while watching the edited version of the movie. We gathered at the Texan's house for the recording session and spent most of the afternoon listening to Monty Python records before getting down to business. It was my first-ever looping session and it was a complete success. And I think it was the spirit of the Pythons that carried the day.
In the final scene of "Seasonings", Sir Thomas Moron wonders aloud if he has made the right choice in defying the King. He looks to the heavens and sees a vision of God (played by our bearded biology teacher) giving him a 'thumbs up' sign. The soundtrack swells with the sounds of Beethoven's Ode to Joy and the credits roll.
We considered it a masterpiece at the time -- though I'm not so sure our 10th grade English teacher appreciated it. The line "Neither food nor drink, Norfuk!" which got a big laugh in the classroom, didn't sit too well with her. My nerd crew and I went on to make other movies, including a mega-disaster flick called "Shake n' Bake" about a huge skyscraper that catches fire during an earthquake.
But "Man For All Seasonings" was our undeniable triumph.
So when I finally got the chance to see Holy Grail at the Vogue, I was completely blown away. From the very start, with the title sequence that opens with an ultra-serious look and dramatic classical score then quickly devolves into a mish-mash of mariachi music and llama jokes, I was choking with laughter. It was all there: the absurdism, the inane philosophical prattle, the parody of genre and the self-mocking lunacy. None of these things were necessarily new. Mel Brooks had done it. My nerd pals and I had done it. But Holy Grail managed to elevate this type of irreverence to the level of the sublime. Talk about a masterpiece!
Perhaps the most brilliant aspect for me was the idea of breaking frame. The idea that the movie is constantly referring itself, like the way that Kurt Vonnegut would break out of the anonymous confines of his role as author and address the reader directly, commenting on the novel as it was being written. Holy Grail is imbued with a sense of self-awareness that draws the viewer into the joke and allows us to laugh with the movie as well as at the movie. In the very first scene, we hear the clip-clop of horses hooves and see a helmeted head bobbing up and down, expecting to see the familiar sight of a knight on horseback. Instead, the horse is revealed to be a man clapping together a pair of hollow coconut halves to simulate the sound of hoof-beats. And rather than let that joke simply lie there, more attention is drawn to it when Arthur gets caught up in a discussion of how a coconut may or may not have been carried to the shores of medieval England by a migrating swallow. All played in complete earnest.
Later, when approaching Camelot, one character points out, "it's only a model." And when Arthur and his men finally reach the Bridge of Death, they meet up with "the old man from scene 24." But the best frame-breaking joke of the movie comes when a "Very Famous Historian" is murdered by one of Arthur's knights. The police are called in to investigate and ultimately catch up with Arthur and Bedivere just before they are set to storm the Grail Castle. The knights are arrested and hauled into a police van. Then a police Inspector turns to the camera and says, "All right, put that away sonny." He puts his hand over the lens and the film abruptly ends. It's pure genius.
Of course I couldn't help noticing certain similarities between "A Man For All Seasonings" and Holy Grail. There were the obvious frame-breaking script references, the documentary-style realism, and the inane philosophical arguments. They even used our "God" cameo -- though in their case, God was a Terry Gilliam animation and not a scruffy high-school biology teacher. The fact is, Holy Grail and "Seasonings" were produced at roughly the same point in time. And though the Pythons had a slightly bigger budget and a bit more talent, we shared an attitude with them that gave us the freedom to do and say whatever we wanted in our film, so long as we thought it was funny. There were no rules, only conventions. And conventions were made to be subverted.
I recently watched a six-part documentary about Monty Python called Monty Python Almost the Truth. I was fascinated by all of the behind-the-scenes information, the history of how they all got together and the discussions of where certain sketches came from. But the most interesting segment was the one about Holy Grail. The Pythons revealed how little they knew about making a movie, how little time and money they had, how the camera broke on the first day of shooting, how they got kicked out of their locations and had to shoot most of the various "castle" scenes in the same place. And it all seemed very familiar. And it occurred to me that the lack of resources and experience and equipment contributed to the brilliance of the movie. Because when you are forced into a corner, you often come up with your best work.
I would love to go back and look at "A Man For All Seasonings" again. I'm not sure where it ended up. Or if the film and the soundtrack are even in the same place. Maybe someday I will dig it up and restore it. But the memory of that early attempt is indelible. Just like my memory of watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail at the Vogue theater in Louisville.
Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time!
Bridgekeeper: Stop. What... is your name?
Galahad: Sir Galahad of Camelot.
Bridgekeeper: What... is your quest?
Galahad: I seek the Grail.
Bridgekeeper: What... is your favourite colour?
Galahad: Blue. No, yel...
Last month I spent a wonderfully refreshing week at my parent's place in Maine. I did a little running, a little swimming, even some kayaking. I also spent some time up in the loft, plowing through some of the boxes I have stashed up there, looking for evidence of my past accomplishments. In particular I was looking for some videos from my foray into stand-up comedy, including a feature about me that appeared on CNN.
It was my fifteen minutes of fame, even though it only lasted about two minutes.
I actually found more than I was looking for. Besides the CNN tape and some brief bits I did for an early Comedy Central experiment called Stand-Up To Go, I also found some rare video of couple of gigs I played when I was going through my folk-singer phase.
It was fascinating to look back after all these years and see this pale, skinny kid with a full head of hair getting up in front of crowds of people and acting like he actually knew what he was doing. If I didn't know any better, I would think this kid was fearless and confident. But I happen to know that he was, in fact, terrified and filled with doubt. And yet, the amazing thing is, you really can't tell. Regardless of the quality of the performance, the overall effect is that the performer seems to believe in himself.
And that really is half the battle.
After a few days in Maine, my folks and I went down to Connecticut to attend my niece's wedding -- which was awesome. We stayed around my sister's house for a while, bulking up on leftover wedding food, before driving to my parent's condo in Florida. I went along as a kind of 'go-to' driver, to take the wheel whenever my Mom needed a break. She did a heck of a lot of driving, though. My Dad doesn't really drive anymore, but he's probably logged more miles than any of us, commuting to work for forty years or so. He spent much of the trip chilling out in the back seat listening to NPR downloads on his iPod.
When we got to Florida, I had a few days to relax before flying home to LA. I did some more swimming, went on a few walks with my Dad, and one particularly hot day, I climbed up into the attic to plow through several more boxes of my so-called archives. This time, however the object was not to find items of interest, but to get rid of as much as possible. And I did manage to drag down a couple boxes of books which my Mom can donate to the local library. But I also found a few more treasures from my long lost past, including two novels, a pile of short stories, a ton of song lyrics and a whole box filled with photographs.
Most of the photos were from the mid to late eighties when I lived in Washington DC -- a period of my life I have been attempting to suppress for many years. A lot of good things happened during this time, but they were all pretty much overshadowed by the disastrous ending of a major relationship. So, when I ignominiously left DC for good, I crammed all of the mementos from that time into a bunch of banker boxes and stashed them at my parent's house in Connecticut. And when my parents moved to Florida, my boxes moved with them. The next time my parents move, they are hoping they won't have to haul a bunch of my boxes with them. Hence the sweaty day spent in the attic, trying to decide what to keep and what to trash.
Surprisingly, instead of ignoring the box of photos, I found myself looking through it, and occasionally even smiling. There were some photos of my old rock band The Charismatics, some pics of family get-togethers, shots of my old housemates from DC, and of course many pictures of me with my girlfriend, Sue, who later became my ex-girlfriend, Sue, and eventually "She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named." There were pictures of the two if us in DC, hiking in Virginia, travelling in Europe and Egypt, at the beach, with my family, and even a few from a trip we took to Northern California when I was working as a paralegal on a big case in San Francisco.
I was spending several weeks at a time at a temporary trial office in San Francisco, so Sue decided to fly out and join me for my birthday. We took off one Friday afternoon and drove up north to see the redwood groves in Humboldt County. We spent all day Saturday hiking through the incredible Redwoods State Park, marvelling at the majestic trees and drinking in the beauty of the unspoiled groves. On the way back, the night before my birthday, we found a cozy little seaside inn with rustic cabins overlooking the Pacific. The cabins had little more than a bed, a bathroom and a wood stove. No electricity. No phone. Just the fire and the ocean and the two of us.
It was pretty romantic.
The next morning, on my birthday, Sue snapped a photo of me standing in the doorway of our cabin, named "Albion House." And when I looked at that photo in my parent's attic, so many years later, I was amazed. Amazed at how happy I was. Amazed at how young I was. But especially, amazed at how good it made me feel. Instead of making me even more depressed about all that has been lost, all I did wrong, all I wish had been, and all I wish had never been, it felt good to remember that morning, that beautiful perfect morning by the sea, on my birthday, deeply in love, with all of life and nature in harmony.
In one of the Grail legends, young Percival finds the Grail Castle, meets the Fisher King and actually sees the Grail. But, failing to ask the magical question that would heal the ailing King, Percival finds himself back on the outside, with no castle in sight and only a dim memory of the glory he once beheld. He vows to find the Castle again, and in his later years, he does accompany Galahad to finally complete the mission.
When I look at the picture of me in the doorway of the Albion House, named for the very British Isles where the Grail quest took place, I see a young Percival -- about to cross the threshold out of the Grail Castle, without a clue that he has failed to accomplish his task and will not be able to return to the Grail Castle for many years, or maybe ever.
But, for that one shining moment, he is in the presence of the divine, filled with the grace of God, and ready to take on the whole world.
I have since tried to find the Albion House, but I'm afraid that, like the Grail Castle, it has vanished -- replaced by upscale luxury seaside cottages complete with hot tubs, cable TV and Wi-Fi. But I will continue my search for the Grail Castle. And maybe I can take a lesson from that pale skinny kid with the full head of hair, who had no idea what he was doing and was filled beyond reason with doubt and terror -- but at least he was out there trying.
And this time, if I find the Grail Castle again, I will know what question to ask. I will heal the Fisher King. I will bring peace and joy back unto the Kingdom. Because, although I am still terrified, now I actually do know what I'm doing.
"Mawidge...mawidge is what bwings us togewer today... Mawidge, the bwessed awwangement, that dweam wiffim a dweam..."
One of the best things about weddings is the way they bring together two completely different groups of people, who would normally never have anything to do with each other, and turn them into one big family. My family just got a whole lot bigger on Saturday with the marriage of my niece Annie to her new husband Tony. The wedding took place in Connecticut, in the quaint little town of Bethlehem, about a stone's throw from where my sister Cindy lives. But you would have thought it was just down the road from Buffalo, because that's where Tony's family is from -- and boy did they ever turn out for this shindig.
I had the pleasure of meeting Tony's family one Thanksgiving a couple of years ago. His brother Mike was working in Las Vegas and I drove out there from LA with Annie and Tony to join them all for the holiday. I had already met Tony's mother, Sue, since she had been out to visit LA a few times and had even come to see The Buzzards. In fact she was one of our most ardent supporters. So I already knew that meeting the rest of the family would be a treat.
With a mom as cool as Sue, how could you go wrong?
We had a great time in Vegas. Thanksgiving at Mike's was excellent. I met Tony's dad, Mario and his sister Christina and brother Nick. We watched football and ate turkey and I heard some inside dope on Tony. Later on, Mario, Tony, Mike and I played a little blackjack at the Hooters casino. We each managed to lose about twenty bucks. It was a little distracting in there. But not for the reason you would think -- the place was under construction and it felt like we were playing in battle zone.
At one point, Mario and I went for a long walk together. We strolled through Caesar's Palace, The Bellagio and a couple of other hotels. We must have walked at least four miles and almost all of it was indoors.
Vegas, baby!
The whole time I was with Tony's family, I felt like I had known them for years. It was instantly comfortable. Even just standing around waiting for the elevator was fun with them. Being so far from my own family, it was great to have such warm folks welcome me into their midst.
So, ever since I heard that Annie and Tony were getting married, I've been looking forward to seeing them all again. And this time they really would be part of my family. Bonus!
The wedding, which was completely envisioned, planned and executed by Annie, was unique and personal in every way, from the setting to the wardrobe to the catering to the centerpieces. Every aspect was marked by flair, intelligence and individuality -- just like Annie.
I was asked to do a reading during the ceremony, which apparently made me a lot more nervous than I thought. As I was driving my parents from the hotel to the historic estate where the wedding was being held, I thought I would take a "shortcut" down a road I thought I knew fairly well. See, some years ago, I lived in my sister's basement while working for the swimming pool company where Annie's dad worked. We used to drive all over the area, fixing pools and such. So, I thought I knew where I was going.
But I didn't.
Also, did I mention we were late?
So, as we headed down Flanders Road, plunging deeper and deeper into the bucolic landscape of Nowheresville, Connecticut, I began to get a sinking feeling. I imagined the whole wedding party standing there waiting for me as I rushed up to make my little speech, out of breath and barely able to speak.
But by some quirk of dumb luck, Flanders Road really did turn out to be a shortcut. Not the shortcut I thought it was, but a shortcut nonetheless. We got there in plenty of time. I was still so nervous that I literally couldn't speak -- but a nice bartender helped out with a needed gulp of water and then I was fine.
And as soon as I saw Annie, I forgot all about my silly worries. She was so lovely. And everything was so perfect. And Tony was there -- the luckiest man alive. And my family. And my new family. It was really one of the most wonderful days I've ever known.
Then came the reception. We had been worried about the weather for days, but luckily the rain held off for the ceremony. The reception took place under a massive tent, put up by the company Annie's brother Chris works for. With beautiful flowers supplied by Annie's stepmom, centerpieces crafted from fruit jars and raw wood, assembled by members of the family. In fact, the whole operation was a family affair, including members of the far-flung extended family who'd come all the way in from Los Angeles where Annie and Tony first met.
It was a testament to Annie's creativity as well as the love that holds this amazing group together. Annie and Tony's LA friends have made me feel as welcome as Tony's family did. And now, meeting even more of Tony's family and friends, I was struck by the realization that every single person I've met through Tony is one of the nicest people I've ever met. And that makes sense to me, because Annie is one of the nicest people in the world. And if anyone were going to be lucky enough to marry Annie, it could only be a guy as great as Tony.
But the magic of Annie's wedding didn't end there. It seemed like, in addition to bringing together the members of two new families, there was also a bringing together of some of the members of old families as well. Watching Annie dance with her father felt like a moment I had been waiting for most of her life. Once the greatest of pals -- now getting a second chance to remember the love that will always bind them.
As I listened to Tony's sister Christina, in a moving and heartfelt toast, refer to Annie as one of her best friends, and then my sister Cindy expressing the same feelings about Tony's mother, I realized that this wedding was so much bigger than two people. It was truly a wedding of families. Old and new. Literal and figurative. East Coast and West.
After the wedding, I got a chance to hang out and reconnect with my own family, whom I never get to see enough. I had some great talks with my sister Susan and learned how to grade English papers from Cindy.
Next comes a road trip to Florida with my parents. That may be a little too much bonding, actually.
But I will come away from this experience a richer man. Richer in friends and family and love.
Thank you, Annie and Tony, for sharing your miracle with us.
It seems that whenever any white person gets caught doing something overtly racist, the first thing they do is get in front of the nearest TV camera and say, "I'm not a racist." Because no matter what you really think, the one thing you can never do is admit to being a racist. In fact, I bet if you did a survey of all the white people in America you would find that almost none of them are racists.
But I am.
For most of my life, I didn't know I was racist. My parents raised me to to treat everybody the same, just like Jesus. But we really didn't know any black people we could treat 'the same.' My Dad had one black co-worker at GE, whose son Eric went to my high school. We weren't really friends, but we were friendly. I remember once my parents had Eric's parents over to our house for a party. Apparently this created quite a scandal in our all-white Louisville neighborhood.
Even in the 'progressive' atmosphere of Wesleyan University, I didn't meet many black students. There were none in my freshman dorm. In the dining hall, all the black students sat together in one corner. Many of them lived in a 'special interest' dorm called Malcolm X House. I spent one evening at Malcolm X house with my friend Mark, who was dating a woman who lived there. I felt kind of like a tourist.
I spent some time in Texas where I worked construction with a black guy named J.J. for a while. We got along O.K. I went to his house once. Felt like a tourist.
When I lived in Washington, D.C., the only black people I knew were the legal secretaries and the guys from the mailroom at the prestigious law firm where I worked. There were no black lawyers there. The part of D.C. where I lived, called Northwest, was where almost all of the white people lived. Even on the subway, I was pretty much surrounded by white people every day. I don't recall that this ever seemed odd to me. Although I remember going to a Grateful Dead concert at RFK stadium one hot summer day with some Russians who were visiting America for the first time. At one point, one of the Russians remarked, "the only black people here are working here."
Sometimes it takes an outsider to point out the obvious.
After I left D.C., I moved to Brooklyn and lived in a neighborhood that was 'in transition'. That meant that white people were moving in and buying up the old brownstones and the black people had to move out. I now had actual black neighbors, including The Rev. Al Sharpton, who lived one block down. When I rode the subway into Manhattan every morning, there were as many, if not more, blacks than whites on the train. There were also Hispanics, Asians, Persians, Russians, Jews, Muslims, Gays, Lesbians, Transvestites, Homeless People, Crackheads, and Panhandlers. I was a long way from Louisville.
The law firm where I worked, which was Rudy Giuliani's old firm, actually had one black partner. For a few months I even had a black co-worker. He told me he got the job because he went to the same college as the black partner. He spent most of his spare time calling up other black paralegals and lawyers on a list he got from his alumni office. He was a networker. He had to be.
One night, I was coming home late from a movie. I had stopped off for a beer or two, so it was pretty late when I got out of the subway, just a few blocks from my apartment. I started to cross the street and noticed a black man waiting on the opposite corner. For a moment, I got nervous. 'What's he doing hanging out on the corner this late at night? Is he going to mug me?' Then I noticed that on the other corner was another black man talking on the pay phone. I immediately felt guilty. The first guy was probably waiting for his friend to get off the phone. (Because all black people know each other.) How racist of me to assume he was a mugger.
I continued across the street and down the sidewalk. As I did, I heard the second guy hang up the phone and walk towards the first guy. A moment later I heard the scuffle of shoes on concrete coming from over my right shoulder. Before I had a chance to process that information, I had an arm around my neck and I was gasping for breath. It was a big arm, a muscular arm, a black arm.
A voice behind me said "Don't do nothin'." I wasn't about to. The second guy quickly searched my pockets and took my wallet. I think I may have tried to say something, but I couldn't speak. Or breathe. Suddenly, the lights went out.
When I opened my eyes, the world had gone cockeyed. There was a tree growing out at a right angle from the wall I was leaning against. My head felt warm. My glasses were gone.
It took a full minute for me to figure out that I was lying on the sidewalk. My attackers were long gone. My glasses were next to me, unbroken. I tried to stand up, but the sidewalk was tilting back and forth. I sat there for a while. The street was completely deserted. Eventually, I got up and walked home. My head was pounding from the huge bump I'd received from being dropped onto the concrete. But I was alive. And that was something.
I called the police and they took me to the hospital where I sat in the waiting room for what felt like hours. Then someone led me to a room with an x-ray machine and had me lay on a steel table. I was in there for another twenty minutes before they let me go. The technician kept pressing my head against the table to get the x-ray. I told him that the reason I was there was because I had a big goddamn bump on the back of my head and that when he pressed my head against the steel table it really, really hurt. He did not seem concerned.
By the way, for the record, the cops and the x-ray tech were white.
I had to wait for a white doctor to look at my x-ray before they let me go home. It was now about four a.m. I had no money and no-one to call to ask for a ride. I was deep in the heart of Bedford-Stuyvesant, one of the toughest neighborhoods in Brooklyn. That means that only low-income black people live there.
The two mile walk from the hospital through Bed-Sty to my apartment in the pre-dawn darkness was one of the longest journeys of my life. My only consolation was that, if I were to be mugged again, I had nothing left for anyone to steal.
So I had that going for me.
For the next couple of months, I was a little freaked-out. Apparently I was suffering from a mild form of post-traumatic stress brought on by the combination of the mugging and the head injury. Since, as a temp, I had no health insurance, I had to rely mainly on the advice and comfort of friends and co-workers during this period.
The good news was, I did get my wallet back. Apparently the muggers tossed it onto a rooftop after removing the twenty dollar bill I had gotten from an ATM less than an hour earlier. Someone found it and turned it in to the police. All in all, I hadn't fared too badly. Little bump on the head, loss of twenty bucks, replace my credit cards -- not exactly a catastrophe. But there was one lingering effect.
A couple of weeks after I was mugged, I was riding the subway. A black man got on and stood next to me. I was sitting and he was standing, so his forearm was right at my eye level. It was a big arm, a muscular arm, a black arm. The sight of that arm sent me into an instant flashback -- I couldn't breathe, my heart was pounding, I felt dizzy and sick. Not until he moved away did I begin to feel better. He was a complete stranger to me. And I hated him.
Months later I was walking down a gravel path when jogger came up behind me. I heard the scuffle of his footsteps coming over my right shoulder and I froze in fear -- expecting to see that black arm encircle my throat. But it passed.
That was many years ago. Fortunately, I no longer freak out when I see black men with muscular forearms. I do still get a little jumpy when I hear footsteps over my right shoulder, though.
So, the other night I was walking down Santa Monica Boulevard. Not late. Not deserted. Shops and restaurants were open, cars passed by. Just ahead of me was a solitary black man, walking in the same direction. I guess I was walking faster than he, because I drew closer to him as we neared the corner. But then, he stopped walking and moved over to the side, by the entrance to a tailor shop. I couldn't help thinking he was specifically waiting for me to pass, but I wasn't sure why. As I went by him and stepped into the street, I glanced back over my right shoulder and noticed he was walking again, right behind me.
The same feelings of suspicion overcame me. 'Why is this guy following me? Is he going to mug me?' And as before the suspicion was immediately followed by guilt. 'Am I afraid of him just because he's black? Am I really such a racist?'
And the answer is, "yes." I was afraid of him because he was black, just as he was probably afraid of me following him because I am white. No matter how hard I try to force myself not to prejudge people, I do it anyway. I do it all the time. I do it even when I think I'm not doing it.
When I saw the two black men hanging out on the corner in Brooklyn, I was nervous because they were black. Then I felt guilty, also because they were black. I made an error in judgment that night because I was so concerned about them being black that I forgot about the fact that they were TWO GUYS HANGING OUT ON THE STREET CORNER IN BROOKLYN AT TWO A.M.
Every time I tell this story, it is always the story of how I was mugged by two black guys. But that's not what happened. I was mugged by two MUGGERS. Why do I need to mention that they were black? Because, apparently, I see black people differently than I do white people. Whether they are muggers or lawyers or construction workers or secretaries or students or just some guy walking down the street. I see them as black first, people second. I do.
So, I think the first step in becoming a post-racist society is not electing a black president. The first step is realizing that we elected a president, who happens to be black. And we did it despite the fact that we are all still racists. Well, I am anyway.
Where's the TV camera?
"If you believed they put a man on the moon..."Somewhere, stashed away among the archives of my past, is the age-yellowed front page of the Louisville Courier Journal from July 20, 1969 featuring a color photo of astronaut Buzz Aldrin standing on the surface of the moon. I had that front page taped to the wall of my bedroom for years, along with my posters of Joe Namath, Peter Fonda and Raquel Welch. The posters are long gone, but I've been hanging onto that front page for forty years. I remember thinking that one day it would be a valuable piece of history. And I guess I was right, but not in the way I had imagined.
When I was a kid, space exploration was pretty much the coolest thing in the world. And it had nothing to do with beating the Russians or conquering the universe. It was about dreams and adventure and excitement: "to boldly go where no man has gone before."
Obviously TV shows like Star Trek and movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey played a big part in my fascination with space travel, but it was the reality rather than the fantasy that originally captured my attention. During one of our summer vacation trips to Florida, my family visited the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, then known as Cape Kennedy. We toured the gigantic Vehicle Assembly Building where the Saturn V rockets were assembled, and stood beside the massive 'crawler' that transports the rocket to the launch pad. The sheer magnitude of these engineering marvels gave rise to the belief that, in this amazing modern world, almost anything was possible.
That belief was confirmed on July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong uttered those famous words, "One small step for man... one giant leap for mankind."
I had been following the mission with great interest, from the thrilling liftoff on July 16th, through the amazing 280,000 mile voyage from the earth to the moon. The night of the moon landing, my parents let me camp out on the floor in front of the TV with my blanket and pillow, to watch the incredible event. I must have fallen asleep a couple of times, but I do remember seeing Armstrong come down that ladder for the first time and kind of bounce down onto the dusty surface of the moon. It was like a dream come true. A man was actually walking on the moon! We had really done it.
The next day I couldn't wait to see the color pictures in the paper, even though I was still pretty bleary from my first all-nighter. I grabbed a pair of scissors and cut off the front page to hang on my bedroom wall in a place of honor. Today the moon, tomorrow -- who knows? That was the beauty of it. We could accomplish anything. And we would.
Less than a year later, however, our confidence was shaken by the nearly disastrous accident that befell Apollo 13. Although, as Ron Howard's excellent retelling of that event in the movie Apollo 13 shows, our ingenuity, intelligence and perseverance ultimately prevailed. But it was, no doubt, an object lesson in how dangerous things really were "out there."
But we kept learning and kept trying and, pretty soon, we were driving cars and hitting golfballs on the moon.
At some point during this period, on a trip to Washington D.C., my family visited the National Air and Space Museum. We got to take peek inside one of the Apollo command modules and stroll around a mock-up of the Lunar Excursion Module, the wacky looking bug-like contraption wrapped in gold foil that ferried the astronauts to and from the surface of the moon. And, of course, we saw the moon rocks. The fact is, the moon rocks did look a lot like certain earth rocks. Not like any rocks we had in Kentucky, mind you, but maybe like they had in Hawaii or New Mexico. But they were moon rocks! From the MOON! It was pretty amazing.
Of course it did not take long for the naysayers to start claiming that we had never really gone to the moon -- that the whole thing was just a hoax, a conspiracy. I never understood why anyone would believe that the moon landing was a hoax. First of all, why would you go to such lengths to fake a moon landing just to say you beat the Russians, and then repeat it five times? And why would you fake a failed mission to the moon?
But it was the era of Vietnam and Watergate and people did not believe in anything anymore. Anything good was phony and anything bad was true. It became cool to think that everything was a joke. Going to the moon was a big waste of time and money. What the hell did we want to go there for anyway?
Now of course, the idea of going to the moon seems quaint. Something dreamed up by a bunch of nerdy guys with crew cuts and short-sleeved oxfords. How silly. We should use our technology to make better phones and video games and stop wasting time on lame science fiction.
Yesterday, however, I watched the spectacular launch of the Space Shuttle Endeavour from Cape Canaveral and I must admit it was still pretty thrilling. And as it turns out, those nerdy guys from NASA never have given up on the dream. In fact, my cousin Randy is one of them. He's part of the team developing the next generation of manned spacecraft, called Orion. They are planning to go back to the moon in about ten years or so. And then maybe to Mars. And after that, who knows?
I guess my old, yellowed front page from July 20, 1969 is a valuable historical artifact. Maybe not to the rest of the world. But it still reminds me of the importance of having a dream and doing everything in your power to make that dream a reality.
Because the real 'final frontier' is the imagination.
"Alright, alright, alright..."
I had to get my car 'smogged' the other day. Normally this wouldn't be a problem -- my car tends to run pretty cleanly. But two years ago when I went in for my certification, my 'check engine' light was on, and that is an automatic 'fail.' They had to give me a tune-up, to the 'tune' of about two hundred dollars, before my car could pass the test. Funny thing is, the damn light came back on a couple weeks later and has been on ever since.
So, this time I went to get my engine 'checked' before my smog test. Once again, I had to shell out a couple hundred bucks to address the issue. And this time, I was told that I needed to drive the car sixty miles before I took the test -- in order to reset the 'check engine' light. The shop I went to last time never mentioned this. That could explain why the light came back on so soon -- they never really fixed the problem.
I have since changed mechanics.
Because I tend to put things off till the last minute, I had to make a sixty-mile road trip in order to reset the 'check engine' light before I missed the smog test deadline. I searched Google for a map showing a thirty-mile radius from my house.
As it turns out there is such a map.
I found a very specific map showing the entire greater Los Angeles area lying within a thirty-mile radius measured from an intersection about a mile from where I live. It's called the Thirty Mile Zone and it refers to the limit which union members in the 'industry' can be expected to commute without being paid travel expenses. Consequently, most television and movie production takes place within the Thirty Mile Zone. And the center of the TMZ (aka 'studio zone') is the intersection of La Cienega Blvd. and Beverly Blvd. (aka 'center of the universe'), which is a mere three-minute drive from my house.
And yes, that is whence the celebrity gossip website TMZ.com derives its name.
Looking at the map, I couldn't help noticing that the outer edge of the TMZ passes right through Malibu: The perfect destination for my little road trip.
My first trip to Malibu was over ten years ago with my buddy Brian. At that time, the famous Malibu pier was closed for repairs. We had some pizza and saw part of a documentary about the Malibu surf scene that featured iconic surfers Lance Carson and Miki Dora. Back in the Fifties, the Malibu surf scene was known only to a select few. Guys with names like "Tubesteak" and "Moondoggie" lived in grass shacks on the beach and dodged the cops when they weren't riding waves.
All that changed when a young girl named Kathy Kohner arrived on the beach one day, towing a surfboard nearly twice her size. Kathy wanted to learn to surf and she wasn't about to let her diminutive stature, or her gender, get in her way. The surfers tagged Kathy with the nickname 'Gidget,' short for 'girl midget.'
Kathy kept a journal of her Malibu adventures, which her father, who happened to be a screenwriter, turned into a book. The book became a series of movies and a TV sitcom. And Malibu was never the same again.
This time I decided to delve a bit deeper into the Malibu mystique. I visited a place called the Adamson House which occupies the land between the Malibu Lagoon and Surfrider Beach. Originally the land was a Chumash settlement. They called it "Humaliwo" which means 'the surf sounds loudly.'
The Spanish first arrived in Humaliwo in 1542, but did not return again for over 200 years. When they did come back, they established a mission on the site and the Chumash got 'Christianized.'
Eventually, the land came into the hands of the Rindge family who fought several long, losing battles with the state of California to prevent construction of the Southern Pacific Railroad and the Pacific Coast Highway. The Rindges had at one time owned all of what is now known as Mailbu, but after losing so many legal battles, the widowed Mrs. Rindge was forced to sell off the property bit by bit. One of the tracts she sold became the Malibu Colony, an enclave of movie stars who wanted a retreat away from Hollywood. The Rindges also built the Malibu Pier, which was where they used to park their yacht.
When she started running out of cash, Mrs. Rindge began looking for oil. Instead she found mud. But not just any mud -- Malibu clay, which was ideal for tilework. She established a tile factory and created some of the most prized tiles in the world. The Adamson House is filled with decorative tilework both inside and out and is sometimes called the Taj Mahal of Tile.
I wandered the grounds for a while admiring the tile and spectacular view, but I still had a few more miles to drive until I reached my thirty-mile mark.
I decided to cruise up Malibu Road and get a look at the Malibu Colony. I pictured a kind of funky, ramshackle place where guys like Hal Ashby and Robbie Robertson used to live. But now it is just another gated community for big stars like Tom Hanks and Howie Mandel.
I continued north on Malibu Road. I used to know a guy who lived up along there. He was in a group of hikers that used to get together every weekend. We called ourselves Hike Club. One afternoon, following a long, hot hike in Solstice Canyon, we gathered at his beach house to cool off. Well, it was really his dad's beach house, but he lived there, too. It was pretty great, sitting on the deck, sipping a beer, watching the pelicans fly by. Later, we went for a dip in the Pacific. Very refreshing.
It's a nice way to live.
I think that's why I like the show Two and a Half Men so much. If I can't have my own Malibu beach house, I can at least pretend I live in Charlie Harper's Malibu beach house for a half-hour every week. Or every night, thanks to syndication. I even bought a couple Charlie Harper style bowling shirts at the thrift store. It's not quite the same, though.
At one point as I was heading up Malibu Road, I saw what appeared to be an opening that provided access to the beach. You rarely see the beach in Malibu. The houses are packed in so tight that a gnat couldn't squeeze through. Even though, legally, the beach belongs to everyone -- access to the beach generally belongs only to the rich folks. But thanks to group called Access For All, there are now dozens of public accessways leading to the beach.
Even in Malibu.
I happened to find one of these public easements nestled between two huge homes about halfway up Malibu Road. I walked down to the beach where one of the homeowners had tacked up a sign indicating that the area extending 25 feet seaward, to the mean high-tide line, was private property. Since the water was almost up to where the sign was posted, I wondered exactly where I was supposed to go. It didn't matter too much, though. Many of these homes were damaged in last year's fires and are in the process of being rebuilt. So I was free to roam the beach without stepping on anyone's toes.
So to speak.
After a brief walk on the beach, I headed up to the PCH and turned south. I immediately passed by the Malibu Bluffs Park and decided to stop in and take a look around. As I wandered the trails along the bluffs -- overlooking Malibu Road and the houses I'd just driven past -- I began to feel quite at home in Malibu. Like I belonged there. I could easily imagine a brisk morning run along the bluffs followed by a cool dip in the ocean. That's the way life was meant to be.
All I need is $15 or $20 million for a beach house.
Maybe someday I'll get that beach house. Or maybe just rent one for a while. I guess until then I can always watch another rerun of Two and a Half Men and pretend I'm Charlie Harper.
I already have the shirts.
"Who do you think those people were? Those were not just some ordinary people. If I told you their names--I'm not going to tell you their names--but if I did, I don't think you'd sleep so well. "
It seems that, once again, the specter of The Illuminati has reared its ugly head, or should I say 'hood'? In the new Tom Hanks thriller, Angels & Demons, the nefarious Secret Society is conspiring to destroy The Vatican. And the only way to stop them is by following a set of clues they have left behind that will reveal their treacherous plot.
Or is it?
Perhaps it is all just a smokescreen, a cover-up, a clever bit of misdirection. After all, The Illuminati are notorious infiltrators who are constantly sending out mixed messages through the media to confuse and confound anyone who tries to penetrate their dark veil.
In fact, in the movie Angels & Demons, Tom Hanks's character Robert Langdon seems to spend most of his time defending The Illuminati. They are academics and truth seekers, like himself, who have been wrongfully maligned by the Church, just as he has. Certainly that doesn't excuse them from blowing up the Vatican, but as the plot thickens and the list of suspects grows, we are no longer certain who is behind this evil plot. Could someone be using the specter of The Illuminati as ruse to hide their own diabolical motives?
Or is the movie itself merely a ruse? Another brilliantly conceived Illuminati plot to divert our attention from their plan to take over the world?
Or have I been reading too many books and websites about Secret Societies and Conspiracy Theories?
It's possible.
In the course of doing some research on a new screenplay I'm writing, I have scoured the Internet and the local library for information on Secret Societies and Conspiracy Theories. And as far as Secret Societies and Conspiracy Theories go, there's no match for The Illuminati. They are the The Sine Qua Non of Secrecy, the All-Purpose Plot-hatchers, the Go-To-Guys of Gobbledygook.
One of my favorite Illuminati Conspiracy Theories involves the Mysterious Death of Stanley Kubrick. Apparently, shortly after delivering the final cut of his movie Eyes Wide Shut, Stanley died of a heart attack. Not so mysterious, you say, Stanley was seventy years old and had just completed a strenuous two-year-long production. He reportedly died peacefully in his bed at his home in England. These things happen.
But when you examine the many symbols and clues that Stanley included in Eyes Wide Shut, you find a veritable manifesto of Illuminati Secrets. Not to mention the infamous Masked Orgy sequence in the middle of the film that basically throws open the doors to a Secret Illuminati Ritual. Having thus violated the cloak of Illuminati Silence, Kubrick was murdered, both to prevent him from revealing more and as a warning to others.
Sure, plenty of movies have flirted with revealing Illuminati Secrets, but Eyes Wide Shut must have really struck a nerve.
The brilliance of Angels & Demons is that it talks directly about The Illuminati, but in a context that makes them seem like a relic of history, instead of the All-Pervasive Puppetmasters of the Modern World. But there they are on the big screen: Hidden In Plain Sight.
One of the methods used by The Illuminati to further their evil ends is Mind Control. Another Kubrick movie, A Clockwork Orange, uses Mind Control as one of its central plot devices. And after the movie was released in England, Kubrick received several death threats, forcing him to move behind the guarded walls of a secluded country estate. (Of course, guarded walls and secluded estates are no match for The Illuminati.) Kubrick also references Mind Control in Eyes Wide Shut, with several thinly veiled allusions to the CIA's MK-ULTRA project. As everyone knows, the CIA is riddled with Illuminati, via their exclusive Ivy-League conduit, the Skull and Bones. The same Skull and Bones, mind you, that brought us George W. Bush and his father George H.W. Bush, who in addition to being president was also director of the CIA.
MK-ULTRA pops up in another movie, aptly titled Conspiracy Theory, starring Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts. In it, Mel is a victim of an evil CIA psychiatrist (and obvious Illuminati member) played by Patrick Stewart. Julia is an attorney with the Justice Department who tries to help him. At one point, Mel explains to Julia the basic Conspiracy Theory premise: "A good conspiracy is unprovable. I mean, if you can prove it, it means they screwed up somewhere along the line."
In the movie Three Days of the Condor, CIA analyst Robert Redford discovers a conspiracy involving a 'CIA within the CIA'. Classic Illuminati tactics, by the way -- infiltrate a secret organization and subvert it from the inside out. Redford finds out that their plan is to invade a Middle Eastern Country to gain control of their oil production.
And that was way back in 1975!
Three Days of the Condor was directed by Sidney Pollack, who also played the part of Victor Ziegler, the Illuminati Overlord in Eyes Wide Shut.
Coincidence?
I think the best Conspiracy Theory movie of all time is the The Matrix, allegorical though it may be. The idea that we are all living in a fantasy world made up of a series of meaningless distractions while an Evil Controlling Entity is literally sucking the life out of us is just about the most perfect metaphor for Illuminati World Domination ever put on film.
But, in my research, I have found something that may be an even better Conspiracy Theory than The Illuminati. In her book 'Secret Societies', crackpot author Sylvia Browne suggests that there is a group so secret that NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD OF THEM! The group is composed of 22 members, who have infiltrated all of the other Secret Societies, INCLUDING THE ILLUMINATI!
I know!
And how does Sylvia know about them? She heard it from her spirit guide, "Francine".
Right?
And what is their purpose? World Domination, of course! To create a New World Order, i.e., a one-world government under American control. And they have formed numerous other Secret Societies as a smoke-screen to carry out their goals.
Now, I could tell you the name of this Super-Secret Society, but then, of course, I would have to kill you.
I may have said too much already. Maybe I'll write them into my screenplay. As long as I don't get too close to the truth. I don't want to end up like Stanley Kubrick.
Or do I?
A couple of years ago I was loitering in a photo gallery on Sunset Boulevard called Morrison Hotel. Theoretically, I was there to view the works of legendary rock photographer Henry Diltz. I had actually met Diltz at an opening there a few weeks earlier. We were standing in front of a picture he took of Jimi Hendrix onstage at Woodstock. And when I say 'onstage at Woodstock', I mean Diltz was literally standing on the stage about ten feet away from Hendrix. It suddenly occurred to me that the guy I was talking to was the guy who took the picture. Of Hendrix. Onstage. At Woodstock.
Turns out Diltz is a real nice guy. He told me some interesting stories about hanging out in Laurel Canyon with Joni Mitchell and Graham Nash, and touring with the Stones in '72. Unfortunately I didn't have any money, or I would have bought one of his photos.
At the Diltz opening I also met Claire, a lovely young woman who worked as the gallery's receptionist. We chatted about screenwriting. She had a semi-interesting idea that had something to do with being surrounded by all of those amazing photographs all day. Her idea reminded me of a Ray Bradbury story, which I mentioned, but she had no idea who Ray Bradbury was. She also told me about a book she'd read called The Secret, which had something to do with imagining your way to success and happiness. That reminded me of a book I'd once read called Creative Visualization. She'd never heard of that either.
I happened to find a copy of Creative Visualization in a used bookstore called The Bodhi Tree during one of my many walks around West Hollywood, and so I thought I'd stroll by the Morrison Hotel gallery one afternoon and drop it off for Claire. I thought it was a gallant gesture. She seemed unimpressed. We talked some more about The Secret, which was beginning to sound more and more like New Age Hooey. She tried to explain the core premise of The Secret, which is called the Law of Attraction. It states that your thoughts generate some kind of magic energy field that literally attracts what you desire.
Although it seemed a little silly to me at first, I thought I would give it a try. After all, I don't claim to have all the answers. Maybe Claire was really onto something. And, I knew exactly what to ask The Universe for: I wanted Claire. So, I thought about her. I even Googled her. And since she was not only a receptionist, but also an actress, I managed to find one of her headshots online. I put her picture on my computer and imagined how wonderful it would be if she and I were together. I felt confident and grateful that The Universe would manifest my desires.
A week or two later, I went to the gallery to give Claire a flyer for an upcoming Buzzards gig. She wasn't there. There seemed to be some uncertainty as to when she might be there again. I went back a week later to see if she had gotten the flyer. I had, of course, been imagining how great it would be when she came to the gig and saw me up onstage playing and singing with my band. So cool. I felt certain that she would soon be mine.
Oddly, though, Claire was not at the gallery when I went back. I don't know if she ever got my flyer. She didn't come to the gig. In fact, I never actually saw her again. Could it be that merely imagining that you will get something doesn't actually guarantee that you will get it?
I decided to forget about The Secret.
For the record, this was not the first time I had encountered such a philosophy. As a child, I remember seeing a copy of the book The Power of Positive Thinking in our house. And I recall my Dad telling me about the successful use of visualization in the training of Olympic athletes. During my research for my first screenplay "Merlin" I came across various texts which discussed the correspondence between conscious thought and manifest reality. That's when I first read the book Creative Visualization. I myself have practiced aspects of this method. For years I have been carrying around a copy of a $100,000 bill in my wallet to remind me that my prosperity is imminent. For years. I have also been a lifelong Hope addict and incurable optimist who has dedicated himself to the fulfillment of a nutty dream despite an avalanche of disappointment and rejection.
So, when I was browsing through the online catalog of the West Hollywood Library and saw the DVD version of The Secret, I decided to add it to my "on hold" list. Apparently, I was not the only person who had put The Secret on hold. In fact I believe I was around number one hundred and eighty three on the list. It took quite some time for me to finally get my notice from the library that The Secret was available for me to check out. The better part of a year at least. Maybe more.
I watched The Secret with a mixture of skepticism and hope. Part of me thought it might be good for a laugh, and part of me was thinking, 'Maybe...'
I was right about it being good for a laugh. There are all these goofball experts on there sharing half-baked anecdotes about how 'positive thoughts are 100 times more powerful than negative thoughts' even though negative thoughts have the same ability to attract things as positive ones. And how worrying about debt actually causes debt. Really? 'Cause I thought not paying your bills caused debt.
Mostly it was, as I had originally suspected, a lot of New Age Hooey. Although some of it was downright dangerous hooey, like the woman who claims to have cured her cancer by watching funny movies. Now, I'm all for holistic healing, but I don't think it's very responsible to recommend that people forgo their chemo in favor of Pauly Shore flicks. In fact, I think most people would find the chemo far less objectionable.
There was even a guy named Jack Canfield, co-author of Chicken Soup for the Soul, who said he made up a fake $100,000 dollar bill and put it in his wallet to remind him that his prosperity was imminent. He called it his "abundance check." And wouldn't you know, within a year he went from making $8,000 to nearly $100,000. In just one year! Asshole. I've been carrying around my goddamn fake $100,000 bill for nearly three and a half years. And I ain't got crap.
Sure, there's a certain amount of wisdom to focusing on the positive in life. But the fact is, only hot young women ever get their desires granted by The Universe, and when I say The Universe, I mean, of course, horny rich guys. The rest of us have to work for a living.
But my analysis of The Secret was not a total loss. As it happens, I watched The Secret the same week that the Republicans released their alternative budget. And I have to say that after years of failing to understand the conservative political ideology, I think I finally get it.
They believe in The Secret!
It's true. The key to understanding the Republican approach to governance can be found by applying the tenets of The Secret. Allow me to explain: The basic premise of The Secret is that what you desire will be attracted to you. However, and this is crucial, you will also attract what you don't want by harboring negative thoughts. That is why it is so important to focus on the positive.
Now, look at the Republican response to the failed economy. They want to freeze all further government spending. Why? Because by trying to "fix" the problem we are focusing our attention on what we don't want. But, by ignoring things like Unemployment and Debt we cease to call them into being and they simply go away. Regulation of banking and other industries is likewise a futile endeavor, for it is simply creating the expectation of failure. Instead we need to allow The Market (i.e., The Universe) to bestow its abundance upon us. Health Care? A no-brainer. The more money we spend trying to fight disease, the more disease there will be for us to fight.
It's frickin' brilliant.
Perhaps the most inspired of all Republicans is former President George W. Bush. He used The Secret to formulate an entire foreign policy. As it is explained in The Secret itself, rich powerful and successful people have known about The Secret for centuries. And who is more rich, powerful and successful than the Bush family? The Bush Doctrine relies on one of the fundamental principles of The Secret, that you must act as if what you seek is already manifest. So, if we believe that a country may someday pose a threat, we should invade that country as if the threat were real. If we believe that Saddam could have WMDs, we must bomb the crap out of Iraq as if those WMDs had actually been found.
In the end, The Universe will deliver unto us what we deserve. Peace, Security and Democracy For All.
Now that I understand the conservative mindset, it no longer confuses and frightens me. I realize that rich and powerful people are a lot like hot young women -- they really do believe that all their good fortune is a reward for being positive and righteous and has nothing to do with luck or circumstance. And so long as they keep getting what they want, they'll keep believing in The Secret.
As for me, I'm going to keep on thinking positively. But I'm not telling anybody what I'm wishing for. It's a secret.
It has been said that, "you can't go home again...but you can go back to PB." PB of course refers to the town of Pacific Beach, California. I know this because I was the one who said it. I lived in PB for about a year just after graduating from college. And I returned to PB just about four years ago, along with my friend Dave, to try and recapture a sense of my youth. What I found was that 'the sense of my youth' I was looking for was still lurking inside me. A few weeks ago, I went back to PB once again, to catch up with another old friend from long ago. His name is Ray Sharp.
By sheer coincidence, or perhaps fate, Ray had also lived in PB at one time. He had moved there while I was still in college, to track down a legendary athlete he'd read about in Sports Illustrated. See, when we were in high school back in Louisville, Ray and I were on the cross country team together. But one summer, after reading an article about racewalking "sports hippie" Ron Laird, Ray entered a local racewalk event and ended up winning it. That led to him competing in the AAU Junior National Championship in nearby Bloomington, Indiana. Which he also won. Next, Ray was off to the Ukraine to race against the Soviets. He brought me back a Russian-made Olympic gym-bag that, despite its godawful crappiness, I cherished as a prized possession for years to come -- until it literally fell apart.
In that one summer, Ray went from being just another high-school distance runner to an international sensation. He was now a walker. He had found his niche.
During our sophomore year of college, Ray and I packed up my old VW bus and drove from Louisville to San Francisco. We were on different quests, mine had to do with tracking down another friend who'd gone off the radar for a while. Ray, however, was there to begin his new life. We hooked up with another racewalker that Ray knew in Berkeley and he introduced Ray to the local scene. Berkeley had been Ron Laird's home base when the Sports Illustrated piece was written. But by the time we got there, Ron had moved. He now lived down south, in a place called Pacific Beach.
We hung around the East Bay for a while. Ray loved the temperate climate, which allowed him to train year-round. I found my 'lost' friend and determined that he wasn't in any mortal danger. Eventually, I went back to college. Ray moved down to Pacific Beach where he and Ron Laird became roommates.
I kind of lost track of Ray after that. His new life took him in a very different direction than mine. Both our parents had moved away from Louisville, so our paths weren't likely to cross very often. I did see him set a world record one night in the Millrose Games at Madison Square Gardens. He had recently changed sponsors from one shoe company to anther, but he didn't have the new sponsor's uniform yet. Rather than wear the old sponsor's singlet, Ray competed in a faded Grateful Dead t-shirt. Halfway through the race, another walker stepped on Ray's heel and nearly took off his shoe. Ray stopped, pulled the shoe back on, jumped back in and won the race. It was amazing.
I think that was the last time I saw him until, thanks to the miracle of the internet, we reconnected a couple of summers ago. I drove out to Tucson to see Ray at his parent's house. Ray's Dad wasn't doing too well at the time. It turned out to be their final visit together.
Since then, we have kept in touch via email and Facebook. I found out that Ray was entered in the National 50k Racewalk Championship in Santee, California, which is not too far from Pacific Beach. I drove down to meet Ray the day before the race and we decided to cruise over to PB and check out the old stomping grounds. We had actually lived fairly near each other, though about a year apart. We'd both worked in local fast food places. Ray's 'Der Weinerschnitzel' is still in operation but my 'Jack In The Box' has gone out of business. We walked along the boardwalk. Traded stories of our times in PB. Poked around some of the shops. As I had discovered earlier, PB hasn't really changed that much. I guess Ray and I haven't changed too much either. Not too much.
At one point we asked some young dude to take our picture. We told him we'd lived there back in mythical times. He asked if PB was better back then. Ray said, "Everything was better back then."
I noticed Ray was coughing a bit and I thought we should get back to the hotel so he could rest up for his race. But he didn't seem too concerned. For the record, the 50k is a 31 mile race that can easily last for well over four hours. It's not something you want to attempt with a head cold, much less the flu.
When we got back to the hotel, Ray stretched out on his bed and I went looking for some dinner. Ray had said he wasn't hungry, which didn't seem like a good sign the night before a 31 mile race. But what do I know? I found a barbecue place nearby and had some barbecued ham and split-pea soup. I sat beneath the head of a giant bull moose that was mounted on the wall. What kind of sicko would want to kill a bull moose, the largest and most majestic creature in North America, and stick its head up on the wall?
Someone like Sarah Palin, probably.
When I got back to the room, Ray was reading a book about Nixon. He had gone to the 7-11 for some V-8 juice. Didn't seem like much to go on, calorie-wise. He was blowing his nose and coughing more than before and his throat sounded bad. But he fully intended to walk in the race the next morning.
Ray got up at about dawn and started getting ready for the race. It was freezing. I had snagged a space heater and some extra blankets from the hotel office the day before, but these old stucco buildings do not have much in the way of insulation. Ray took off for the race around six. I tried to get my blood flowing by taking a long hot shower. I was pretty glad I was not entered in any race that morning.
When I got to Santee, the race had been going on for about an hour. They run the 10k, 20k and 50k at the same time so the field was still fairly well populated. But pretty soon after I go there, all the 10k competitors started leaving the race, which cut out about two-thirds of the walkers.
I watched the race for about an hour. Ray was doing well, keeping in the lead of the 50k group alongside another walker who happens to be a three-time Olympian and ten years younger. I heard the meet announcer reading some of Ray's history over the P.A. system. There was the AAU Junior National win, the trips to the Soviet Union and East Germany, four World Cup appearances, records and national titles in every distance, including the grueling 100k, competing in the World Championship in Rome, setting the World Record in New York, qualifying for the first Goodwill Games in Moscow...
I'd had no inkling of all of Ray's accomplishments. Just to read them over the P.A. system took ten or fifteen minutes. But it wasn't so much the number of titles he held or records he'd set, it was the span. He'd been doing this since he was 18. And he's still going strong. He did have one setback, though. After the 1988 Olympic trials, where the 100 degree heat and 100 per cent humidity nearly killed him, Ray began suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome. He continued to compete for another few years, but eventually had to stop altogether. By now Ray was married and starting a family. It was time to settle down.
But Ray could not keep still. After almost ten years out of competition, he started feeling well enough to begin biking to work every day. That led to an interest in triathlons. As he felt his strength returning, he decided to get back into racewalking. Since then, he has competed in four National 50k Championships, two Pan Am Cup races and two World Cups. In Santee, Ray was hoping to qualify for another Pan Am Cup race.
Ray seemed to be holding steady, so I decided to run across the street and get a bagel. When I got back to the race course about ten minutes later, I saw that Ray had fallen behind. He wasn't looking too well either. And he still had about 15 miles to go.
But the thing about Ray is, he doesn't give up easily. For the next hour, I watched him fall farther and farther behind. His strides grew more and more unsteady. A couple of times he started wobbling around like he was about to fall flat on his face. But he wouldn't drop out. I wasn't sure what to do. He looked like he was killing himself. He was obviously sick as a dog, but he refused to stop walking. He'd gone nearly 20 miles and still had over ten to go.
I noticed the race officials conferring with the medic. They were wondering if they should pull him out. But then one of the judges gave him a "red card" for a violation of form. In racewalking you have to keep one foot on the ground at all times and keep your knee straight until it passes under your hip. Three violations and you're out. Actually, it was amazing that he had gotten this far. It was amazing that he was still conscious. Within the next few laps, Ray got two more red cards and they pulled him out of the race. If they hadn't, I don't know if he would have ever stopped.
After the race, Ray and I had some food and talked for a while. If he was disappointed, he didn't show it. And considering how sick he was, and the fact that he'd just walked twenty miles, he was in amazingly good spirits. Of course the next day he was sick in bed with a fever. And a few days later, so was I.
It was great seeing Ray again. I wish he'd done better in the race. But the fact that he didn't finish kind of says more about him than if he had done well. Racewalking isn't a glory sport. Ray never got a lot of attention or money or support for being a racewalker. It's a tough, lonely, thankless road that's only traveled by those who can keep going when there's no end in sight.
There will be other races. In fact, I got an email from Ray about a week after seeing him. He was competing in a 54k cross-country ski race in Michigan. And he was just barely getting over the flu. He's looking forward to the summer so he can start swimming, biking and running.
And next year there will be another 50k Championship. And Ray will be there.
